Originally Published: 01 Apr 2007

Asia’s best-known economist last week used the 60th anniversary commemoration of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) to remind the people of the Asian/Arab/Islamic worlds of their rich contributions to global civilization.

In a profoundly inspiring lecture, Prof Amartya Sen, the first Indian and the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998, asked, “Has Asia been doing enough in leading the world opinion on how to manage, and in particular not to mismanage, the global challenges that we face today, including that of terrorism, violence and global injustice?”

While soundly debunking the concept of a “Clash of Civilisations”, he pointed out that “the refusal of some powerful countries in the world to talk to others has substantially contributed, I would argue, to making the world more unstable and violent today.” There was no mistaking which “powerful countries” he was referring to.

In an era when everything — from science and technology to mathematics and medicine — seems to be dominated by solutions from the West, Prof Sen’s lecture sent a clear message that no region has any monopoly on ideas and innovations, and both the East and West both have much to learn from each other.

That reflected both his professional qualifications and personal upbringing. In a citation recognizing his achievements, ESCAP said, “Professor Sen, when asked why in spite of primarily living abroad for several decades, he had still retained his Indian citizenship, is said to be have replied, ‘My Indian citizenship is more important to me than the Nobel Prize’.”

The topic of Prof Sen’s talk, which he said he chose himself, was “Asian Immensities.” These immensities, he said “are not confined only to its population size and geographical area, but also encompass Asia’s role in world history.”

Drawing upon his “own sense of belonging to Asia”, as an Indian, born in Bangladesh who also lived for a while in Burma, he delved deeply into the rich history and heritage of Asia and the Middle East, noting the contribution of thinkers like Rabindranath Tagore to education systems and literature, Islamic scholars to mathematics and Buddhist engineers to printing technologists in ninth-century Asia.

Today, he said, the West is clearly dominant in the field of technology but the hi-tech world of 1000 A.D. included paper and printing, the kite and the wheel barrow, the crossbow and gunpowder, the clock and the iron chain suspension bridge, the magnetic compass and the rotary fan, which were all well-established in China, but practically unknown in much of the rest of the world, including of course Europe and the West.

Although “the immensities of Asia have received recognition in Europe for a very long time,” they “have not always been admired and praised in the Western countries, and indeed sometimes they have appeared to Europeans to be rather terrible, with seriously damaging and corrupting influence on Europe.

“Now that ‘Islamophobia’ is quite common in parts of Europe, and many Europeans like to insist that the European Union should officially assert its uniquely ‘Christian roots,’ it is worth recollecting that not that long ago, Nietzsche, the great German philosopher, asserted that we Asians were responsible for – yes, Christianity – and we did much damage to Europe through spreading it to gullible Europeans.

“Nietzsche argued that ‘Christianity did everything possible to orientalise the Occident,’ and went into some eloquence in denouncing Asia and Christianity in the same breath: ‘Christianity wants to destroy, shatter, stun, intoxicate; there is only one thing it does not want: moderation, and for this reason, it is in its deepest meaning barbaric, Asiatic, ignoble, un-Greek’.”

Prof Sen said that in today’s turbulent world, interactions across the borders of a country have taken on even greater significance and importance.

Rather than a “fragmentary approach,” which “segregates the beliefs and practices of different regions into self-contained entities”, what is needed is an “inclusive approach” which “pays full attention not just to the divisions between regions, but also to the interdependences involved, possibly varying over time, between the manifestations of civilisation in different parts of the world.”

Prof Sen stressed that “the old tradition of talking to each other remains so important in the world today – no less so in Asia. The issue has relevance in global politics and in international diplomacy.

“The refusal of some powerful countries in the world to talk to others has substantially contributed, I would argue, to making the world more unstable and violent today. There is no substitute for talking – no serious alternative to the “parliamentary” method – in making the world a peaceful place.”

The same applies for social and economic policies, a primary concern of ESCAP. “Given the wide variations in achievements in different Asian countries, we have an enormous amount to learn from each other – from the respective successes and failures, in different fields, of different countries. To a certain extent this has been happening quite strongly already, but the force and impact of this creative process can be further enhanced.”

Although “we have reason to be proud of what we Asians have been able to do for ourselves and for world civilization, but there is a lot to do still.” However, rather than offering “solutions” he phrased them in the form of a number of questions that offer “scope for further learning.”

These included how Asia can more equitably share the fruits of rapid economic growth in countries like China and China, how it can improve health care, create constructive and peaceful multicultural societies and overcome community-based confrontations.

Two of his questions were about gender justice: how to make higher female mortality rates a thing of the past in all Asian countries and regions, and, related to that, how to combat sex-specific abortions, “which is quite widespread in many countries such as South Korea, China, and even in the Northern and Western states in India (though not in the South and the East of India)?”

His concluding question was, “Has Asia been doing enough in leading the world opinion on how to manage, and in particular not to mismanage, the global challenges that we face today, including that of terrorism, violence and global injustice?”

Asked to elaborate on this final point in a later press conference, he noted the complexity of the issue, involving as it does root causes that go beyond global injustice into the realm of intellectual confusion, historical biases and civilisational thinking which work “in a symbiotic way” to be exploited by those who wish to do, be they belligerent Muslims or Hindus.

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